Watch Out for Zuul!

Zuul the Dinosaur

Has Zuul the monster been discovered? People misinterpret coincidences so quickly that it’s sometimes frightening. Victoria Arbour, who works for the Royal Ontario Museum, published her study of the most complete skeleton of an ankylosaurus dinosaur found in North America in the May 7 issue of the Royal Society Open Science Journal. The dinosaur looks very much like a monster named Zuul portrayed in the 1984 movie Ghostbusters.

The dinosaur had large horns on its head and smaller spikes on its face. It had a long, spiked tail with a massive knob of bone on the end. The full scientific name of Arbour’s find is Zuul crurivastator which means “Zuul, Destroyer of Shins.” Scientists gave it the name Zuul because of the similarities to the Movie monster. The “Destroyer of Shins” is because of its tail.

What is interesting is that we have already received a phone call in which the person calling said that we were in error saying that dinosaurs don’t live today. The reason was that Zuul had just been found in northern Montana and the filmmakers must have seen this animal. (The fact that the fossil was originally discovered in 2014 didn’t seem to make any difference to the caller.)